98                                 RINDERPEST.

                                       PART II.

                                   RINDERPEST.

Experiments carried out to test the susceptibility to
Rinderpest of cattle from several districts in India and on
improved methods of Rinderpest serum preparation.*

                                        BY

MAJOR J. D. E. HOLMES, M.R.C.V.S., M.A., D.Sc., I.C.V.D.,

     Imperial Bacteriologist to the Government of India.

                            INTRODUCTION.

THE scheme for the establishment of a second Laboratory
has been brought under consideration owing to the popularity
which the anti-Rinderpest serum has achieved among cattle
owners in most parts of India. The demand for this serum
has been increasing each year, and at the present time, the
Muktesar Laboratory is unable to meet anything like the
amount required. The resources of this Laboratory have been
strained to their utmost in regard to the preparation of this
serum. Each brew of serum is being issued as soon as
prepared; nevertheless, large demands from each province
remain from time to time only partially complied with. The
preparation of anti-Rinderpest serum was commenced at
Muktesar in 1899-1900.

In that year 9,700 doses were manufactured. In 1905-1906,
the output of this serum had increased to 211,407 doses, and in
the same year a scheme for the erection of a second Laboratory
was sanctioned by the Government of India, owing to the
rapidity with which the demands for the serum were increasing
annually. In 1906, I was deputed to select in Southern India
a site suitable for a second Laboratory. A tract of land on the
Palni hills in the Madras District was decided upon as offering

* A detailed report on the same subject submitted to the Government off
India on the 18th April 1911.